 | |
| Author | Tamiko Beyer |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Alice James Books |
Publication date | April 13, 2021 |
| ISBN | 978-1948579162 |
| Preceded by | Dovetail |
| Followed by | Poetry as Spellcasting |
Last Days is a 2021 poetry collection by Tamiko Beyer, published by Alice James Books. [1] The book won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry and was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award. [2] [3]
One of Beyer's poem-stories preceding the book's publication, "Last Days, Part 1", won the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers in 2019. Its ideas would later be revised and included in the book itself. [4]
For the book's launch, Beyer hosted an event, "Seeds Bursting Open in Fire", to gather over 60 attendees and discuss the social, political issues relevant to the book's poetry, among them the environment. Beyer also executed a different book distribution model by fundraising enough to give the book to over 200 "organizers, campaigners, activists, cultural workers, and healers" along with Gabrielle Civil's new chapbook, ( ghost gestures ). [5]
The Adroit Journal commended Beyer's optimism in the face of apocalyptic threats like climate change and other forms of environmental degradation. The reviewer stated "the collection envisions a societal renaissance toward justice and equity, toward an evolved consciousness that sees all living matter as a part of a singular, vast, interdependent organism." [6]
RHINO said the book "is song-filled and feathered; a murmuration; a brilliant manifesto for survival." The reviewer, Luisa Igloria, observed the rich diversity of styles ranging from triptychs and zuihitsus to haibun and tanka. [7]
Ilanot Review stated "As we find ourselves in the overwhelming midst of so many interwoven crises—climate change, global pandemic, political turmoil—Tamiko Beyer's Last Days is a collection of poems that walks bravely to the edge of the precipice to observe and confront the long-entrenched violences wrought by white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism." [8]
Forrest Gander is an American poet, translator, essayist, and novelist. The A.K. Seaver Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts & Comparative Literature at Brown University, Gander won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2019 for Be With and is chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Luisa A. Igloria is a Filipina American poet and author of various award-winning collections, and is the most recent Poet Laureate of Virginia (2020-2022).
Victoria Chang is an American poet, writer, editor, and critic. She has experimented with different styles of writing, including writing obituaries for parts of her life, including her parents and herself, in Obit, letters in Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, and a Japanese form known as waka in The Trees Witness Everything. In all of her poems and books, Chang has several common themes: living as an Asian-American woman, depression, and dealing with loss and grief. She has also written two books for children.
RHINO Poetry is a nonprofit literary organization based in Evanston, Illinois. RHINO Poetry offers a print journal RHINO, the RHINO Reads! pop-up live lit event series, and monthly RHINO Reviews online, as well as internships, fellowships, and awards. The organization is consistently ranked in the top 100 literary journals for poetry in the US. In its yearly print journal, it features works from emerging and established English-language poets, flash fiction/creative nonfiction, and poetry in translation. Approximately a year after print release, all poems from the print journal are released in RHINO’s “Online Archive.” Writers submit via Submittable March–June, with monthly caps, to be considered for publication, for the Ralph Hamilton Editors’ Prize and/or for an annual Translation Prize. Writers submit to the Founders’ Contest August–September, with monthly caps, and winners chosen by a Guest Judge. Editors as of 2024 are Virginia Bell, Jan Bottiglieri, Angela Narciso Torres, Ann Hudson, John McCarthy, and Naoko Fujimoto. There are also Associate Editors, Editorial Assistants, Helen Degen Cohen Summer Reading Fellows, and Interns.
Joshua Jennifer Espinoza is an American poet from Riverside, California. She is a Visiting Professor of English at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California.
Phillip B. Williams is an American poet. Born in Chicago, he is the author of the chapbooks Bruised Gospels and Burn, as well as the full length poetry collections Thief in the Interior and MUTINY.
Rosebud Ben-oni is a Latina-Jewish American poet and writer known for her "Poet Wrestling with" series. Her 2021 work If This Is the Age We End Discovery won the Alice James Award and was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Poetry. Her poetry and lyrical essays have been commissioned by Paramount, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and Museum of Jewish Heritage in NYC.
Tanya Grae is an American poet and essayist, whose debut collection Undoll was awarded the Julie Suk Award and a Florida Book Award and was a National Poetry Series finalist. Her poems and essays have been widely published in literary journals, including Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Post Road, and The Massachusetts Review. Grae was born in Sumter, South Carolina, while her father was stationed at Shaw AFB. She grew up traveling the United States as her father relocated for the military every few years and often writes about those early experiences. Her primary themes often revolve around the natural world, the American Southeast, womanhood, girlhood, matrilineal history, domesticity, and feminism.
K-Ming Chang is an American novelist and poet. She is the author of the novel Bestiary (2020). Her short story collection Gods of Want won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. In 2021, Bestiary was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Major poetry related events taking place worldwide during 2020 are outlined below under different sections. This includes poetry books released during the year in different languages, major literary awards, poetry festivals and events, besides anniversaries and deaths of renowned poets etc. Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Aurielle Marie is an American poet and activist. Their debut collection Gumbo Ya Ya received the 2020 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry.
Paige Lewis is an American poet and the author of the collection Space Struck, which was named one of the Best Books of 2019 by Entropy and Book Riot.
Eye Level: Poems is a 2018 debut poetry collection by Jenny Xie. It was published by Graywolf Press after Juan Felipe Herrera selected Xie's manuscript for the Walt Whitman Award in 2017. After publication, the book was nominated for several awards and won a few prizes including the Levis Reading Prize.
As She Appears is a 2022 debut poetry collection by Shelley Wong, published by YesYes Books. It won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry and was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Poetry.
Shelley Wong is an American poet. In 2022, she released her debut poetry collection, As She Appears, after winning the YesYes Books Pamet River Prize in 2019, and her work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, the New England Review, and other publications. Her poetry has been supported by the Vermont Studio Center, the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Fire Island Artist Residency, the San Francisco Arts Commission, among others.
Tamiko Beyer is an American writer, editor, and activist. She is the author of several books, including Last Days, a poetry collection that won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry, and Poetry as Spellcasting, an anthology co-edited with Destiny Hemphill and Lisbeth White.
The Grave on the Wall is a 2019 memoir by Brandon Shimoda, published by City Lights. It won the PEN Open Book Award.
We Come Elemental is a 2013 poetry collection by Tamiko Beyer, published by Alice James Books. The book was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry.